In the Son's Image
by Yasona Black
Summary: After a messy divorce, Vernon takes Dudley, leaving Petunia at a loss for her son. She decides that Harry might make an acceptable substitute. Pre-Hogwarts, Implied child abuse


_In the Son's Image_

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><p>o0o<p>

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><p>After a long and bitter court battle, Vernon Dursley had absconded with her son, Dudley, leaving Petunia alone at Number Four Privet Drive with only a small boy still locked in the cupboard. For the first few days, Petunia can only stare numbly at the day time soap operas playing on the telly as her tears dry on her face. She hears the knocking at the cupboard door, but she cannot find the will in her to open it and let the boy out.<p>

Locking the boy in was one of the last things Vernon did before he left.

Opening it meant that he wasn't coming back.

Opening it meant Dudley was gone.

For three days, she watches soaps, sleeps on the sofa, and cooks giant meals only to throw them out in the trash when she realizes no one is there to eat them.

After three days, the knocking in the cupboard stops.

It's the lack of noise that jolts her and halfway through the fourth day she clambers off the couch, woozy from lack of food, and heads to the cupboard. She steels her breath and opens the door.

The boy's eyes are closed and fear strikes a thump in Petunia's heart. He couldn't be. She stretches her hand to the boy's face and notes the smuggled bottle of water and the remains of a moldy sandwich on the floor. _Thief!_ an angry voice yells in her head before she quashes it down. She can't remember the last day he was let out for food or…she wrinkles her nose, or for any other reason.

She strokes her index finger softly down the boy's face, like she used to do to Dudley before he was stolen from her.

His eyes snap open and the brilliant green eyes regard her with fear.

Something itwists/i in her chest.

"It's okay, Har—Harry," Petunia says, stumbling over the boy's name.

His eyes are confused but no less frightened. But Petunia thinks that there might be a speck of hope in his eyes.

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><p>o0o<p>

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><p>Harry's not really old enough to understand exactly what is going on. But he knows that his uncle was becoming a lot more quick to anger and a lot more vicious. For a while, it seemed as if no one could do anything right. Harry spent more and more time locked away in his cupboard where he made friends with the spiders and he would wince at the volatile sounds and arguments that came from the kitchen at night.<p>

Even Harry knows that everything changed right after Vernon smacked Dudley. That was the first day that Dudley was kept home from school because he had a large bruise on his face. The looks Dudley sent Harry were positively vicious, but Harry thought that he may have been a bit scared.

On one of the nights that Vernon was out , Harry watched his aunt and cousin through the slats in his cupboard door. His aunt stroked Dudley's blonde hair and wiped away his tears, being careful not to press to hard on the yellowing bruise. She talked about something called divorce and that her and his daddy just didn't love each other anymore. She promised that he would be safe with her.

So when Harry's left in the cupboard for three long days, and thankful that he thought to steal some bread and water, he assumes that his aunt has finally won her divorce case, whatever that meant, and that her and Dudley were off celebrating. For three days, Harry doesn't hear Vernon. It soon occurs to him that he doesn't hear Dudley either. He only hears Aunt Petunia's quiet steps and sobs.

On the second day, he begins pounding on the door. He really has to use the loo and while he wouldn't call his aunt kind, she hadn't always looked at him with quite the same disgust, and she wouldn't want him dirtying any part of the house.

But she never responds to the knocking and Harry is left to take extreme measures.

On the fourth day, Harry awakens to see Aunt Petunia looking at him sadly. It's not a face he had ever seen sent towards him before. He had seen that look quite a lot the past few months, but it was saved for Dudley.

"It's okay, Har—Harry," she says, and Harry hopes that she's referring to the mess in the cupboard, because he really doesn't want to be punished for that. Uncle Vernon would be so displeased and once, only once before, Petunia had helped him clean up a mess when his uncle was in one of his more volatile moods. Perhaps this would be the same.

"Come out, Harry," she says, holding a shaking hand out to him.

Harry finds this completely and utterly strange. Aunt Petunia prefers to call him boy, never looks at him, and most certainly never touches him, not even to smack him. Perhaps he's finally been good and a small sort of thrill races through him. He doesn't know what he's done right, but if he has been good…

He grabs Petunia's hand and she helps him up and through the cupboard door. Harry is used to exiting the cupboard on shaky feet, but it's amazing how steadying one bony hand can be. The house is a mess, but he isn't given a list. Instead, he's dragged upstairs to Dudley's room. The room overflowed with toys and video game equipment. Dirty clothes were strewn all across the room.

Harry wonders if he is supposed to clean it. Dudley had always been adamant that Harry not be allowed to touch his stuff, even to clean up his mess. And so, the mess always lingered.

His aunt brings him to the closet and begins rifling through the clothes. She picks out the smallest ones and hands them to Harry. He stares at the clothes in wonder. Usually his cast-offs were only given to him after Dudley had worn holes through them. These were perfectly clean and in fact, still had the tags on them.

"Put them on, bo—Harry," she says.

Harry wastes no time in shrugging out of his grimy clothes to put on the new ones. He misses the frown his aunt gives him at his bony frame.

"You need food," she says.

Harry looks at her in wonder. That was the same voice she used when telling Dudley he needed fattening up. Uncertain of what to say, Harry is quiet and waits.

"Well, come on. Don't just stand there."

There was no snap to her tone. No bitterness. But later on, as Harry sits at a table with a meal that he hadn't prepared or stolen, there's sadness in every glance. Harry wants to ask where Dudley is and what happened to his uncle, but he fears any questions might break the tentative truce that his aunt had randomly created. That night, nothing is more confusing than when his aunt dresses him in Dudley's pajamas and sends him to bed in Dudley's room, saying a cupboard is no good for a growing boy.

Harry thinks that he'll never be able to sleep in Dudley's bed, but the mattress is so much softer than his cot that he falls asleep in seconds. In the morning, he wakes up to his aunt cooking Dudley's favorite breakfast, and he's not only allowed to eat it, he's encouraged. There are no lists of chores to do, but Harry begins picking up regardless. The house has become a mess since he's been locked in and although Petunia tells him to leave it, she gets distracted by one of her soaps where she cries silently.

And the days continue as such. Then the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months. Harry never steps foot in the cupboard anymore even though his cot still lingers inside with a handful of broken knights still twisted in the thin sheet. He begins playing with Dudley's toys, testing them out slowly, waiting for slaps, and when they never come he starts becoming accustomed to them. He eats Dudley's favorite breakfast, Dudley's favorite lunch, and Dudley's favorite supper every day. Petunia never changes it and Harry doesn't dare ask. He sleeps and wears Dudley's clothes, his nice ones included, and when he begins outgrowing them, Petunia takes him to shop at Dudley's favorite stores.

When months turn into years, the house begins turning into a disaster. His aunt doesn't seem to work and the house begins falling into disrepair. Although Harry tries to keep up with the cleaning, Petunia doesn't seem to care, tossing garbage and old magazines everywhere. She watches her soaps, buys more food than either of them can eat, and spends an obscene amount of time on the couch, just looking sad.

And every now and then, she forgets that Harry is named Harry and calls him Dudley instead. Harry supposes he shouldn't be surprised. But it's okay. He doesn't know where Dudley is and Uncle Vernon has never come back. He eats well and sleeps well, and he hasn't had to stay home from school because he was locked in or bruised in over a couple of years.

And every now and then, when something ifreaky/i happens, Petunia ignores it. Harry doesn't know what's going on, but when an owl shows up one day, a few weeks before his eleventh birthday, Harry has the strangest feeling that something very good was going to happen.

When the man, a iwizard/i, no less, comes to visit, Harry tries to make the place as appealing as possible. Unfortunately, Harry can't make months worth of garbage piles disappear in a day, so he shrugs things to the corners and dusts off the clear parts of the coffee and end tables. He also can't make his aunt wash up or leave the couch.

When the man walks, no, istalks/i, through the door, Harry is reminded of Vernon and flinches, and then grimaces at his flinches. It has been years since he had to deal with his uncle. He shouldn't still be having issues. The man barks gravelly insults at Petunia who doesn't bother to reply and looks at him as if he was a ghost.

"Potter!"

"Dursley," Harry answers, calmly, finding that vicious people like him were often thrown off their game if he just sounded relaxed in their presence.

The man freezes and looks from him to his aunt, his stare calculating.

"Potter," she says softly.

It's the only word she has said all day. And Harry realizes that he had forgotten that his last name was in fact, Potter, and not Dursley.

His aunt looks at him as if she was betraying her very soul.

The man looks around the room in distaste. "Perhaps we should adjoin to another room, Mr. Potter." It was an order.

Harry nods dully and leads him into the kitchen. "Would you like some tea?" Harry asks, busying himself with a kettle for something to do. Unlike Dudley, he had always found himself needing to do something, anything. He was terrible at just sitting down.

The man gives the barest hint of nods and Harry takes out two tea cups and sets the kettle on the stove.

"You may sit down now, Potter."

Harry acquiesces and fidgets in a seat. The man tells him about Hogwarts and wizardry in quick, prompt, and straight to the point sentences. He scoffs when Harry says he doesn't think he could be a wizard.

"I'm sure you've done something ridiculous that ended up benefitting you," he says.

While Harry does remember shrinking some things, talking to a garter snake out in the yard, and turning a couple teachers' hair blue, he really thinks about the day he left his cupboard and took over Dudley's life. He wonders if that was magic.

The man, Snape, is staring at his hands that are clenching his tea cup and Harry carefully unfolds them.

"It doesn't matter," he says. "I can't leave here. I can't leave iher/i."

The stare from the man is far more exacting than anything. Harry thinks he might know that this wasn't a selfless request to stay and help his aunt, but based in his fear that if he leaves his aunt, he might only have a cupboard to come back to.

"Besides, we obviously don't have the money. Er, sorry."

And then the man looks even more incredulous at him and seems to grudgingly explain that he very well could attend Hogwarts and that he didn't make a trip all the way up to Surrey for no reason.

Harry keeps denying his ability to go until his aunt appears into the doorway.

"Go to Hogwarts, Dud—Harry," she says.

"Will it…will it be the same?" Harry asks. It's the first time he's made any hint or comment about how everything changed.

He thinks she looks ashamed. The man looks at Petunia as if he was her judge, jury, and executioner. Why, Harry really had no idea.

"If Dudley was here, I would want him to go," she says.

"But I'm here," Harry says slowly.

The man watches their conversation as if they were an exciting tennis match.

"Yes, but you're here."

And so before Harry goes to Hogwarts, Aunt Petunia picks out new clothes that Dudley would have liked and feeds him Dudley's favorite breakfast.

And as usual, when Aunt Petunia calls him Dudley, Harry lets it go.

His life could have been a lot worse.

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><p>o0o<p>

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><p>AN: Reviews, comments, and constructive criticism appreciated!


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